Category Archive

“Are you having a hypo, mummy?” my six-year old daughter asked me the other day. This was in response to me asking her to please pick up the fifty or so books she had scattered on the floor. When I told her I didn’t believe she was reading ALL of them at once, she assumed my slightly snippy response was due to low blood sugar.

I wanted to tell her ‘Sometimes it’s not diabetes’, but instead, laughed. And told her to pick up her books.

What do our children understand about having a parent with type 1 diabetes?

I started wondering the answer to this question when my daughter was very young – less than 12 months old. Before she could even speak she knew things about mummy and diabetes. She knew that if she was looking for a feed and reached down my top, she would find a pump stashed there.

And yet if she reached down anyone else’s top – which she did, (she was always looking for a feed!), there wouldn’t be a pump. The one time that she actually did find another pump – reaching down my friend Jodie’s top – the look of complete astonishment and amazement was priceless!

As she fed, lying back contentedly, she would gently hold the pump line. Never pulling it out, just gripping on to it with her pudgy little paws.

The kidlet has always known that the jar of jelly snakes on the kitchen bench is for me and me alone, and she explains to her friends why, when they ask for one, it’s important that no one else eats them. When she was little, I referred to the jar as ‘mummy’s medicine’. Until, of course, she tasted one. Then the word ‘medicine’ was replaced with ‘hypo treatment’ and over time she came to understand what that means.

It’s a natural reaction to try to protect our children from bad stuff. I don’t want to scare my daughter, so the really nasty things get hidden. The fears and anxiety don’t get discussed around her. But I absolutely resent that diabetes intrudes into our life.

I hate that she knows that there are moments when I simply can’t read to or play with her because I am dealing with low blood sugar and right at that moment there is nothing more I can do.

And I hate that she sees me when my blood sugar is high and I am flaked out on the couch trying to keep the nausea at bay.

But I love the way she jumped at someone who said people with diabetes have an illness. ‘My mummy is not sick!’ she said indignantly. ‘She has type 1 diabetes’. And when I overheard her explaining to someone that ‘there is no cure for type 1 diabetes and there is nothing that mummy could have done to have stopped getting it’.

The other day when she asked me if she would get diabetes, I could barely breathe. I felt that my heart was being torn out of me as the terror that is hidden there made its way to the surface. I looked away to hide the tears, and wished with every cell of my being that I could promise her that of course she wouldn’t get diabetes.

Instead, I gulped in some fresh air, smiled brightly and said ‘I hope not’. And then stopped and said ‘But if you do, it won’t stop you from doing anything. And we’ll look after you to make sure that you are OK.’ And then I turned away again to blink away the tears.

Finding what and how we want to explain diabetes to children is a difficult and highly personal matter. I decided early on that I wanted to keep my diabetes away from our girl. Not because I am ashamed of living with this condition, but rather because I didn’t want to trouble her with it. But I soon realised that there are parts of living with diabetes that I do want to share with her and that there are ways to do it that are not a burden. Instead they show her my resilience and my ‘never give in’ attitude. Which is something I inherited from my mother who also lives with a chronic medical condition. I think of how proud I am of how she has lived with Lupus for the last 30 years; for the way that she hasn’t stopped doing all the things she has wanted to do and the way that she is a terrific advocate for and inspiration to people with her condition.

I want my girl to think of me with the same pride and admiration.

Our children needn’t think of us as broken because we have diabetes. For me, I want to show our daughter that diabetes is just one part of me – and to some degree makes me the person that I am. And that it doesn’t make me any less of a mother because I live with this condition.

It’s just about finding the way to explain things in an age-appropriate and relevant way. Earlier this month on Diabetes Art Day, I read the Six Until Me blog about how Kerri Morrone Sparling is using art to teacher her baby daughter about diabetes. What a perfect way to introduce the condition to her little one.

And for us, in our little home, even if the kidlet sees the bad days, she will be acutely aware that there are far more good days. And on those days, diabetes is kept in its rightful place.

This post is my September entry in the DSMA* Blog Carnival. If you’d like to participate too, you can get all of the information here.

I’ve blogged before that I have been accused of making diabetes look easy and fun. It’s neither of these things. And I’m not a very good actress either, so it surprises me that people think that. In some of my recent blogs at Diabetes Australia – Vic, I have delved into the darker side of my life with diabetes – specifically the way hypos are changing and how that’s making me feel.

But this week, when yet another person told me that by looking at and listening to me, diabetes can’t be all that difficult I started wondering why. And then I realised. It’s because the ugly truth gets hidden. And I laugh a lot about how hopeless I am at things instead of stopping and really pointing out how they affect me.

Because, if I didn’t laugh, then I would cry!

If I didn’t laugh about my constant dia-mistakes, I would spend every waking minute second guessing my diabetes decisions.

If I didn’t laugh about ‘splurters’ (you know – finger pricks that ‘splurt’ everywhere), I would never wear white tops (and I love white!).

If I didn’t laugh about all the diabetes paraphernalia I need to carry, then I wouldn’t have an excuse to keep searching for the perfect bag (and buying the not-quite-perfect-ones in the meantime).

If I didn’t laugh about (and cheer) the diabetes nirvana that is 5.5mmol/l, then I wouldn’t have an excuse to post pictures of my BGL meter (with said 5.5mmol/l) on Facebook and Twitter.

If I didn’t laugh about being the person with the largest jar of jelly beans and Chupa Chups on her desk, then I would probably feel guilty about the vast quantities of sugar sitting in one place.

If I didn’t laugh at sharing diabetes war stories with my pancreatically-challenged friends, then I wouldn’t feel the community, solidarity and love from these amazing people.

If I didn’t laugh (sarcastically) when people ask ‘Should you be eating that’, then I would probably hit people, (and would have a criminal record by now).

If I didn’t laugh (again, sarcastically) when people refer to me as a ‘diabetes sufferer’, then I would start to feel victimised.

And if I didn’t laugh, rejoice and celebrate at what I am learning from the DOC, then I would feel a lot more alone and isolated.

DSMA is Diabetes Social Media Advocacy. If you don’t know who they are, please have a look here. And follow on Twitter @DiabetesSocMed. For those of us in Australia it’s a way to feel linked to the wider diabetes community. And that, in my opinion, is a great thing!

I have only been blogging at Diabetes Australia – Vic. It’s where I work and our blog is just getting started really, so most of what I have been writing has wound up there.

So (again) I am pulling together all of my recent posts here. And I really am going to try to actually blog at diabetogenic. At least, that’s what I keep promising myself! Anyway – here’s what you’re missing if you don’t read the DA-Vic blog.

Somewhat strangely, diabetes writes me a letter here at A message from diabetes.

As I was getting ready to present at the annual scientific conference for the Australian Diabetes Educators Association and the Australian Diabetes Society, I started thinking about role of people with diabetes at these conferences. Right now, it’s pretty much zip. In Just ask us I question why we’re not consulted.

Kicking diabetes’ arse so thought’s I’d look at the good things in What’s not to like?

Actually, the truth of the matter was that I wrote ‘What’s not to like’ in response to this post. The changing face of diabetes is my telling of the scary ‘white out’ hypos I’ve been having lately. Which in turn have made me start to fear the turn my diabetes is starting to take.

So – what happens when I find my first grey hair and my ophthalmologist calls me old? I realise that Sometimes it’s not diabetes. And I feel old!

I can now proudly say that I actually did walk in the five kilometre part of this year’s Run Melbourne. But before the fact I was freaking out. It’s all here in Walking the walk.

Who knew there was such a thing as ‘hug a person with diabetes day’? Not me until Facebook told me. So, I discussed diabetes advocacy in Go on; give me a hug!

And yay – I managed to find a Harry Potter angle in Harry Potter and the great unknown, where I wonder about my diabetes future.

Also – during National Diabetes Week – all the way back in July – I guest blogged at Open Forum. Here I talked about All I want for National Diabetes Week which really was just for the media to differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Not asking much, really!

That’s all for now.

…I thought I’d link to some blog posts I’ve written for the Diabetes Australia – Vic blog. I manage Type 1 Diabetes and Community Programs at DA-Vic and have worked there for the last almost-ten years. Our blog was started last year. So here are my musings to date:

Diabetes for a Day talks about some interesting examples of health professionals pretending to have diabetes.

Cures not cuts is my on-the-ground report from a rally in Melbourne protesting proposed cuts to medical research by the federal government.

Oops I did it again is not my homage to Brittney Spears, but rather a discussion about my all-too-frequent ‘dia-mistakes’.

It takes a village is where I thank all the people who help me live well with diabetes day-to-day.

In Things I wish I’d been told about diabetes I reminisce about my diagnosis and fill in some of the information gaps that would have been useful back then.

Everyone’s experiences of their own diabetes is different. In A perspective on perception I write about this….and how my bird brooch is also, apparently, a mango.

It’s all about the food shares my ten food philosophies.

The invisable condition that is type 1 diabetes is discussed in Sick? Not me!

And finally, my first post on the DA-Vic blog, Balance, were I ponder where diabetes fits into my crazy-busy life.

I’ll start writing here soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy what I’ve already written and that you come back soon!

I have been considering staring my own blog for some time now, and after posting occasionally on a blog at work, decided that it was time to get going!

My name is Renza and I have type 1 diabetes.  It’s not a confession – it’s a fact. My life is not all about diabetes, but it certainly is part of me and has changed who I am. I guess the aim of this blog is to try an make sense of a life that is lived along side an unwelcome guest that never leaves. That’s how diabetes feels at times. 

So, I’m just going to write and try not to be self-conscious as I share the reality of my life with diabetes – and hopefully other things as well.

DISCLAIMER – I work for a diabetes organisation.  My thoughts on this blog are not in any way aligned with this organisation and this blog is not sponsored by the organsation.  At times, I may link to their website, because there are some fantastic things going on there that may be of interest to people living with type 1.